Catch me if you can! —

Pirate Bay cofounder to be deported from Cambodia

TPB cofounders continue to avoid serving prison sentences.

Officials have said they will deport Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm from Cambodia, where he has been living for the last four years, but have not said where he will be sent or when they will deport him.

The Swedish developer, who was arrested on Sunday in Phnom Pehn, was convicted along with three others connected with The Pirate Bay. They were convicted by a Swedish court in 2009 on the charge of “assisting in making copyrighted content available,” and were ordered to collectively pay over $4 million. In February 2012, the Supreme Court of Sweden declined to hear the case.

"We will deport him based on our immigration law," police spokesman Kirth Chantharith said, according to Reuters. "We just know we will deport him. As to which country, that would be up to the Swedish side," he said.

The news agency notes that the two countries do not currently have an extradition treaty in place.

Local Cambodian media suggests that his deportation will happen sometime in the near future. “We will use the Immigration Law against him to deport him out of our country and Minister of Interior Sar Kheng will sign on the deportation request letter from the police commissioner soon,” Phal told the Phnom Pehn Post.

“We will have to just deport him, wherever he goes, we don’t know, but he has to be out of Cambodia,” Phal added.

Previously, a police spokesperson in Cambodia told the AFP news agency that Svartholm had been arrested “at the request of the Swedish government for a crime related to information technology,” suggesting that Cambodian officials may not be entirely clear why they’re arresting The Pirate Bay founder.

Swedish media (Google Translate) reported last month that of the millions due in the case, only 333,000 Swedish kronor ($50,000) had been recovered. All four of the co-defendants, including the three cofounders, now live outside of Sweden—but the legal noose around them appears to be tightening.

The company’s former CEO, Carl Lundström—the only one who has paid anything thus far—served four months in prison and now lives in Switzerland. Fredrik Neij reportedly lives in Laos, although his passport was recently revoked by the nearest Swedish embassy in Thailand. The most visible of the group, Peter Sunde, who is also the co-founder of Flattr, a micropayment system, has been the most outspoken, and appears to be bouncing around Europe on the conference circuit. (I last saw him in person in December 2011 in Kosovo.) In a tweet, Sunde said Svartholm is "apparently OK."

In the meantime, a hacker group known as NullCrew has targeted Cambodian government websites, claiming to have taken over the site belonging to the Cambodian Army.